


off the record

by Arya_Silvertongue



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Slash, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25336840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Silvertongue/pseuds/Arya_Silvertongue
Summary: “I’m drunk,” Rodney declares, knowing that resistance is futile with Tower 5-C already listing ten degrees to the right.“Yeah?” There’s a serious note to Sheppard’s voice, prompting Rodney to turn and face him. Blinking slowly, he finds the other man’s gaze fixed on something just above Rodney’s left ear. When Sheppard speaks again, the sound comes out almost ominous. “Good.”(Or: Rodney and John share a bottle of Athosian ruus wine, and talk about things they won’t remember in the morning.)
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	off the record

“I’m drunk,” Rodney declares, knowing that resistance is futile with Tower 5-C already listing ten degrees to the right.

“Yeah?” There’s a serious note to Sheppard’s voice, prompting Rodney to turn and face him. Blinking slowly, he finds the other man’s gaze fixed on something just above Rodney’s left ear. When Sheppard speaks again, the sound comes out almost ominous. “Good.”

A pause.

Rodney blinks again.

“Good,” he echoes, carefully maintaining a neutral tone. Neutral is good.

Sheppard gives him a noncommittal response, a cross between a grunt and a hum. He still doesn’t meet Rodney’s eyes.

A distant part of Rodney’s mind, the one desperately holding on to the last threads of sobriety, is telling him that Sheppard really shouldn’t be encouraging his current predicament.

“Good?” Rodney repeats, again, this time fully committing to be interrogative. Just because his brain is temporarily decommissioned, doesn’t mean he will forsake the inquisitive nature that makes him a damn good scientist. The best, even. “Isn’t drunk… bad?”

There. That should do it.

It’s widely accepted among the people of Atlantis that a drunk Rodney McKay is a statistical outlier. He can out-drink Halling, Radek, _and_ Ronon. He has at least one ancestor who was a blue-blooded Scotsman. He’s lived in _Russia_. Rodney’s alcohol tolerance could’ve been MENSA, which is why he’s having trouble understanding what Sheppard is on about, saying that Rodney skirting the edges of an overdose is good news.

When Sheppard finally looks at Rodney, there’s a small smile on his face, almost wistful.

“If you’re drunk, then you won’t remember this,” he tells Rodney.

There’s a long stretch of silence after that, one they both spend just staring at each other. The longer it goes on, the clearer Rodney’s mind becomes. After a while, he feels warmth on his cheeks, and he’s more than half-aware that it has nothing to do with the wine.

“Do you…” Rodney pauses, barely avoiding a slurring of words that would’ve just been downright embarrassing. He grapples for the right terms, the exact elements to the figure of speech he is going for. “Do you have designs on my virtue, Colonel?”

To Rodney’s fascination, Sheppard’s cheeks twitch, and he breaks eye contact to stare at something else on Rodney’s face.

“Well?”

For a moment, Rodney thinks he may pushed too far. But instead of shutting him down, Sheppard graces him with a small smile. When their eyes meet again, Rodney can see a twinkle in Sheppard’s gaze. 

“This is good,” he tells Rodney, raising his eyebrows to point at the nondescript bottle between them. “Joining the festival. You’ve been busy lately. Cooped up in your lab.”

It’s automatic, Rodney’s disagreement. “What? I go out.”

Sheppard’s eyes narrow, but the curve of his lips remain.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I do!” Rodney insists. He feels his face scrunch, which is a good thing, since a few sips ago, he's started to think his forehead was getting numb. “Mess. Radek’s lab. Miko’s lab.” He pauses, trying to recall other places. “My quarters. Infirmary.”

The effect is immediate, and he watches as the ghost of a smirk vanishes from Sheppard’s face.

Before he can open his mouth to add more places — or take back whichever one it was that caused such a reaction — Sheppard looks away to stare outside the balcony. When he breaks the silence, his words come out tight and restrained.

“You’ve been going to the infirmary again.”

Rodney feels himself wince, the effects of the wine slowly fading into a distant memory. “Well. Yeah.”

He doesn’t particularly like discussing the reasons why he’s been avoiding the medical wing for the last couple of months. With Sheppard, he doesn’t even need to.

But things are changing now. He’s found out a few days ago that seeing yellow expedition jackets or smelling antiseptic no longer makes his throat close up. Being in the recovery ward doesn’t make Rodney want to tear what little is left of his hair out anymore.

Heightmeyer would’ve called it progress.

“I don’t like Keller.”

Just like that, Rodney’s battle with the alcohol ends, Sheppard’s admission cutting across the haze as sharply as one of Ronon’s knives.

“Okay,” he breathes out, spine straightening of its own volition. “I think I’m about to sober up.”

Apparently, it’s the wrong thing to say because all of a sudden, Sheppard stills.

Even when he’s compromised, Rodney is still smarter than 92% of sentient life forms in at least two galaxies, so he catches on quick. Before Sheppard can hide behind his wall of stoicism and fabricated charm, Rodney grabs the smuggled beverage that’s sitting between them, and tips back a mouthful.

“There,” he announces, wiping his lips with the back of the hand still holding the bottle. “Drunk again. Totally wasted.”

After a beat, Sheppard snorts, giving him a sideways glance. The look in his eyes tells Rodney that Sheppard’s on to him, but after a while, he speaks again.

“She’s too young to be CMO,” he elaborates. “Hell, she’s too young to be in the _expedition_.”

Before Rodney can tell Sheppard that she’s just a couple years their junior, that _Ford_ had been almost a decade younger than Jennifer Keller their first year, he catches the hard set to Sheppard’s jaw, and he realizes that maybe that’s the point.

“They’re all too young,” Sheppard continues, voice barely above a whisper.

Rodney takes a deep breath, then tries to get them back on script.

“And I’m sure the fact that she’s not buying into the whole Kirk routine has nothing to do with it whatsoever.”

This time, when Sheppard huffs, it sounds significantly lighter, and Rodney’s surprised at how inordinately pleased he feels, the warmth spreading across his chest and down his spine.

“I’m not her type,” Sheppard informs him, wryly.

“Oh?” Rodney feels his mouth curling into an indulgent smile. “That’s too bad.”

Instead of taking the gag and running with it, Sheppard‘s slumped shoulders stiffen, and the hands on his lap start to curl. His head is bowed this time, so Rodney can’t see the look on his face.

“But you are.”

Rodney’s not entirely sure how to respond to that, so he settles for, “Huh.”

His pathetic reaction seems to go over the head of Sheppard, who looks like he’s on a roll.

“And she’s exactly your type, isn’t she?” The words sound teasing to anyone who’s not well-versed in Sheppardese, as deceptively good-natured as their speaker. Rodney watches, more than a little stunned, as Sheppard lifts his head to tick off on his fingers. “Blonde. Gorgeous. Smart.”

Despite himself, Rodney nods. “I like smart people.”

Sheppard drops his hand and snorts, but this time, it sounds strained.

“I do,” Rodney insists. “You’re smart. And gorgeous.”

The result is instantaneous, and Sheppard’s head shoots up so fast it almost breaks the sound barrier. Even when he squints at Rodney, his eyes still look impossibly bright under the light of New Lantea’s twin moons.

“Are you really drunk?”

Rodney nods, because he’s not stupid. “Absolutely.”

There’s a beat where they just stare at each other again, lips twitching in an effort not to break. In the end, it’s Sheppard who snorts first, then lets out such a ridiculously-sounding guffaw that it sets Rodney off in his own fit of giggles.

It’s a while before they manage to catch their breath. As soon as Sheppard recovers, he fixes Rodney with a knowing smirk.

“Carter’s gonna get pissed at you if you show up to the briefing with a hangover, you know that, right?”

Mentioning Sam is an excellent indicator that Sheppard’s mood has improved. He only ever uses the Carter Card when he’s in a good enough disposition to act like a little shit.

But hearing Sam’s name sends Rodney off course, and there’s still enough alcohol in his system to make him acknowledge the painful reminder that there’s an entirely different person conducting their mission briefs now.

“I miss Elizabeth,” he hears himself say, apparently not immune to the evening’s theme of blurting out non-sequitur confessions.

The frozen look on Sheppard’s face tells Rodney that he probably shouldn’t have said that. He watches, with guilt but surprisingly no regret, as Sheppard clips on his Colonel Face.

“Carter’s a good commander,” he tells Rodney, even managing to sound sincere. “She’s trying her best.”

There’s an implication in that statement that, while not Sheppard’s intention, raises Rodney’s hackles. He lets irritation show on his face, and waves an impatient hand. “Don’t be an idiot.”

Sheppard is gracious enough to look sheepish.

Breaking eye contact, Rodney fixes his gaze on the bottle on his lap, only now noticing that Athosian ruus wine really does look like orange juice. He doesn’t know how to feel about that.

“Rodney?” he hears Sheppard ask, when the silence goes on longer than Rodney intended.

“Our first year,” he starts, letting the pull of memories tide him away, “I couldn’t count the number of times I’d wanted to call Sam, tell her about everything. The city. All the tech. Of course, ‘calling’ would’ve been entirely impossible, and she probably wouldn’t have picked up, but I wanted to. I wanted her here.”

When he responds, Sheppard’s voice comes out too flat. “And now she is.”

Rodney nods. “Now she is.”

The words clawing their way out of his throat are ones he’s been keeping on a tight leash for months now. Breathing life into them will just be pointless, not to mention unfair for everyone involved.

But looking back at Sheppard, who is staring at him like he already knows every unspoken syllable, Rodney thinks maybe he can finally let them go.

“I wanted Sam here, but— not like this.” It comes out rushed, almost burning his tongue. “Never like this.”

For a long moment, all Rodney can do is wait for the words to reach Sheppard. The part of him that has always remained a coward after all these years is hoping that the cool, midnight breeze will carry them far away, thrown but never caught. But one look at the Colonel’s face, the one that Rodney has only ever seen a handful of times, and he knows that the message was heard loud and clear.

He sighs, and braces for impact.

“But then again,” Rodney starts, even succeeding in ensuring that his voice is steady, “this galaxy has always been keeping us on our toes, hasn’t it?”

Before they can lapse into another stretch of heavy and meaningful silence, Sheppard’s lips curl into an approximation of a smile, and he looks away from Rodney, gaze back into the New Lantean waters.

“It never gives us what we want exactly how we want it,” Sheppard tells him.

There’s something about the way the words are spoken that makes something in Rodney’s chest stutter. Before he can stop himself, Rodney’s opening his mouth.

“John,” is what he manages to utter, so softly that he only barely avoids wincing.

“I’m tired, Rodney.”

From where he’s sitting, Rodney can see the curve of John’s outline as the other man’s shoulders hitch, and then slump. His eyes are closed as he lowers his head. Whether it’s in benediction or surrender, Rodney can’t quite tell.

“Elizabeth and Carson are gone,” John continues, voice rough and whisper-thin. “We almost lost the city, and now we’re on a new planet.”

Rodney’s so caught up in the trance that John’s momentary vulnerability has him in that he almost misses the turning of head that ends with them looking at each other in the eye.

“I thought you were _dead_.” John’s lashes flutter, and Rodney watches, ensnared. “I thought you’d died, and I’m still, I still can’t—”

They’ve been through this more times than Rodney cares to remember. He’s practically memorized all the ways John works around what he really wants to tell Rodney, finds the wrong phrases to say the right words, but this may just be the closest John has gotten to the truth.

He waits it out, just like always.

“How long, you know?” John breaks contact, but his eyes don’t stray farther than Rodney’s jaw. “I know you said what you said, but. Rodney, I can’t. I just can’t.”

When John looks at him again, Rodney can see the way the resolve starts to take root.

“I can’t make you wait forever. I can’t ask that of you.”

For a long while, they stay like that, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Rodney’s beginning to think it’s going to take them more than just one bottle to erase every echo of this conversation come morning.

Never one to trust his fate in someone else’s hands, he intercepts John’s mad grab for the wine and finishes the bottle in one go.

“No,” Rodney spits out after the last gulp. “We only need one amnesiac tomorrow, and if anyone ought to forget how stupid you actually are, it might as well be me.”

John doesn’t even bother to look offended, just raises an eyebrow and keeps his silence.

“Sam came to me,” Rodney starts, suddenly unable to hold the other man’s gaze. He knows that what he’s about to say is something that he really shouldn’t. He continues nonetheless. “The day after— after Kate. She went to my quarters.”

The sharp intake of breath beside him is so soft Rodney wouldn’t have heard if he wasn’t actively listening for it.

“Grieving, yes. Guilty and stressed. But one hundred percent sober.” Rodney revisits the memory with an amused huff. “It was even a Saturday, so I had the next day off. Imagine that.”

Rodney pauses, and when he doesn’t hear the customary snort, the relief he feels is palpable.

As he turns to face John, the other man is already looking at him. Rodney takes a deep breath, and wills him to understand.

“I said no.”

As though a testament to what little faith Rodney has allowed himself to hold throughout his entire existence, he sees understanding in John’s eyes.

“Why?” John asks him, despite already knowing the answer.

Rodney just shrugs. “Because I’m already waiting for someone.”

It’s one of the harder things, in their little situation, that Rodney has to leave it at that. They’ve been drawing lines around them for years now, and the admission stands between Rodney and everything else that they may have said or done in the wake of it.

After a beat, John, who knows these lines as well as he does, visibly relaxes, and his face breaks into the smallest yet brightest of half-smiles.

“You know you’re not supposed to tell me things like that about my commanding officer, right?”

Rodney scoffs as he fiddles with the bottle. “Drunk, remember? Plausible deniability.”

As he hears a quiet shuffle, Rodney can feel the ghost of something warm just above his arm.

“Rodney…”

“Don’t,” Rodney interrupts, giving John a sidelong glance.

The answering smirk he gets, this time, is soft and teasing. "No?"

“Not today,” he adds.

Rodney's surprised by how much it no longer bothers him. Somehow, what used to be a burden, even one he's agreed to with full conviction, has turned into a promise. _Someday_.

“When you finally say it, I don’t want to forget.”


End file.
